1. Technical Field
The present invention disclosed herein relates to a memory card device, and more particularly, to a memory card, a memory system including the memory card, and a method for operating the memory card.
A flash memory device is a non-volatile memory device which does not require power to maintain information in a memory chip. While flash memory devices may be slower than dynamic random access memory (DRAM) used as a main memory for a personal computer (PC), flash memory has a relatively fast reading speed and is less susceptible to damage cause by impact compared to a hard disk drive (HDD). With these characteristics, flash memory is widely used as a storage device for battery-operated devices. Another feature of flash memory is that it is substantially impervious to adverse conditions such as high pressure and immersion in boiling water.
In flash memory devices, data can be electrically erased and rewritten. Unlike an electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM), flash memory devices are relatively inexpensive. Accordingly, flash memory is primarily used where a large capacity non-volatile solid-state storage device is required. Flash memory is used in devices such as digital music players, digital cameras, and cellular phones. Another example of a device that uses flash memory is the universal serial bus (USB) drive, widely used for the purpose of storing general data and transmitting data between computers.
Recently, secure digital (SD) cards and multimedia cards (MMC) including flash memory are widely distributed. The MMC is a relatively low priced data storing and communication medium. The MMC is designed to cover a wide range of applications such as smart phones, cameras, personal digital assistants (PDAs), digital recorders, MP3 players, and pagers. Examples of the characteristics of the MMC include high mobility and high performance at a low price. These characteristics include low power consumption and extensive data processing at a memory card interface.